Doesn't the current scientific research that the systems in the brain which make decisions about muscular movements, integrate sensory data, etc. are entirely separate from the system(s) which assigns those actions to the 'self.' Thus people with damage to certain parts of the brain believe that things that they perceive happening to other people (such as being touched) are happening to themselves, or others who believe that actions being performed by their own bodies are done at the direction of someone else. Is O'Leary not familiar with even that old research which showed that one part of the brain 'decides' to do a certain physical action before the person is even aware of making the decision? (Sorry, don't have time to find the links at the moment). These research subjects being aware that they were not in command of the psychological/behavioral phenomena which they were experiencing is not terribly surprising (although cool) given what is known. Oh well, I suppose that you couldn't ask a science journalist to have a passing familiarity with the science upon which she comments.

No, I wouldn't expect too much from O'Leary when it comes to anything "sciencey".

Number 5 is the classic test - subjects press a button and are surprised to see that the slide changes just before they press the button! Turns out the button is a fake and the slide show was actually triggered by signals picked up from their cortex. Evidently, the cortex "decides" to push the button, the signal is sent to the motor areas of the brain and signals to the various muscles in the finger emerge a fraction of a second later. But in normal life, consciousness is "post dated" an equal amount of time so we are not conscious of our decision until the signals are sent to our fingers, a fraction of a second after we decide to press the button.

But you see, our real brains are in a vat orbiting Arcturus and that delay is the normal sub-etheric transit time for those sorts of signals. ID predicted that and Denyse will explain it all in simple but incoherant words in her next book, which you can buy at the Intelligent Design for Business Seminar at Baylor.